


Nothing Behind Me, Everything Ahead

by VanaTuivana



Category: X-Force (Comics)
Genre: Apache Mythology, Developing Relationship, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Native American Character(s), Road Trips, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5103287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanaTuivana/pseuds/VanaTuivana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...as is ever so on the road." - Jack Kerouac</p><p>Missing scene taking place vaguely between X-Force vol. 1 #70 and #71, the start of the Great X-Force Road Trip issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Behind Me, Everything Ahead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karrenia_rune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/gifts).



The lonely bus station had cleared out hours ago with the departure of the 9:10 to Chicago, leaving behind scattered newspapers, the lingering stench of diesel, and one solitary figure hunched over on the bench.

James Proudstar got to his feet and cracked his neck, picking up the knapsack that contained all his earthly possessions, as a dusty red Cadillac pulled up to the curb, the driver leaning on the horn extra obnoxiously. “You guys took your time,” he remarked. He leaned into the convertible to accept a hug from Theresa in the passenger seat. “I’ve been here since seven.”

“Yuir directions confused Tabby,” the redhead explained, and planted a kiss on his cheek for good measure. “It wasn’t so bad, though. She only got us lost four times.”

The driver scowled through her oversized shades. “Three,” she insisted. “The other one was a detour. And I got us here, didn’t I?”

James glanced into the backseat. “Yeah, but it looks like you lost a passenger or two along the way.” His gaze stopped on the car’s fourth occupant, and he frowned slightly. “And picked up a hitchhiker. Danielle Moonstar, that’s new.”

Dani wiggled her fingers at him in a little wave. “Just here to keep you on your toes, Proudstar.”

He lifted his eyebrows at Roberto, who gave him a grin and a what-can-you-do kind of shrug. “Can’t wait to hear the whole story. But speaking of my toes, I think the guy with the longest legs gets shotgun, Ter. I doubt Bobby wants to sit on my lap all the way to… wherever the next stop is.”

“My friend, I would prefer not to, but Theresa is always welcome to sit on mine.” Terry flicked Bobby in the side of his head as she slid over her seat into the back, settling in between him and Dani, and he clutched his ear in mock pain. “Oww. I’m a fragile man. Be gentle with me, menina.”

“What sort o’ fun would that be?” Terry answered cheerily, and rapped the side of the car with her knuckles. “Take us away, Tabs.”

“Hey, you just hold your horses, lady.” Tabitha flipped her shades down to roll her eyes at James. “You sure you want in on this clown car, big guy? There’s still time to turn tail and run the other direction from this bunch of bananas.”

James tossed his knapsack onto the car floor and stepped carefully in; despite his caution, the car lurched to the side under his weight. “Sorry,” he said out of habit. “Too bad we’re not taking the PACRAT.” As Tabby popped her gum, stepped on the gas and tore out of the bus station, he slung one arm over the seat and turned halfway around so he could see everybody in the backseat. “So. Tell me what I missed.”

\---

An hour later, they’d crossed over into Ohio and he had a pretty good handle on current events and why half the team hadn’t joined in on this cross-country jaunt. Some parts he could have seen coming. Caliban back at the mansion to get help with his mysterious disease, sure. Domino heading out on her own mysterious missions, well, that was her usual MO anyway. Cable pushing them all an inch too far and finally leading to a full-out revolt among the team: that had been a hairsbreadth away practically ever since they’d started this whole X-Force business. James wasn’t about to pretend to any surprise.

Rictor and Shatterstar running off to Mexico together, though… 

“I mean, in hindsight it makes sense,” he commented after a minute of running that idea through his head. Bobby had looked like was about to crack a joke, but Terry shot him a quelling look. “If anybody needs some alone time, it’s those two. Maybe by the time they come back they’ll have figured things out.”

Tabby snorted. “Not in a billion years, pal. I mean, Shatty’s not as dense as he looks, but he still doesn’t really grok humans, and even Scrooge McDuck back there couldn’t buy Ric a clue with his enormous piles of pesos.”

“That’s not fair, Boomer,” Terry protested. “Rictor’s not dumb.”

“Also, I don’t have any pesos,” Bobby added, a little smugly. “I have piles and piles of _reals_ , instead.”

Tabby tossed a balled-up gas station receipt over her shoulder, popping Bobby right in the forehead, and grinned at him in the rearview mirror. “Whatever.”

“Anyway,” James said, and craned his neck so he could give Dani a pointed look. “Can we discuss the elephant in the car? When did Moonstar, Agent of SHIELD, join up with us rogue X-Force types?”

Dani had been quiet, focused on the book in her lap, but she looked up now to meet his gaze with her steady brown eyes. “I’m not working for SHIELD now, James. You can trust me on that.”

“I’m sure you told your friends in the MLF that, too.” He didn’t miss the hurt that flashed over her face at that, and felt just a little guilty, but it had to be said. “Look, guys -- it’s not that I don’t like Dani, but she was a double agent hunting down mutants for Bridge, who always had it in for Cable and, by extension, us. Are we really just going to take it on faith that she’s not still working for them?”

“Yes,” Terry said firmly. “We are. You weren’t there when Zero Tolerance had us cornered like rats in St. Louis, Jimmy. After what Dani did for us, we can’t be doubting she’s with us now.” She squeezed Dani’s hand emphatically.

James looked from face to face and saw nothing but agreement. Bobby nodded and Tabby made an ‘OK’ sign with her fingers and thumb, and Terry looked fierce enough that he knew not to question her further. “All right,” he said after a minute, conceding the battle, though not the war. “Welcome to the club, Mirage.”

She nodded and looked away, staring at the signposts flashing by. James watched her for another few seconds before turning back to Tabby. “So… I realize it’s a little late to ask, but where are we going?”

\---

Where they were going turned out to be another one of Cable’s innumerable safehouses, this one an old farmhouse in middle-of-nowhere Ohio where they’d never been before; with a lack of any real destination, they’d made the group decision to head there after picking up James in Detroit. “We thought we’d take a night or two to make some plans,” Terry informed James as he slung both their packs over one broad shoulder and followed Tabby up the weathered grey steps into the house.

He glanced around. A bare-bones kitchen, a couch or two, a couple of rooms upstairs, probably a stash of enormous futuristic weapons in the root cellar and ammunition in the cupboards. It wasn’t exactly homey, but they’d stayed in worse places. At least this one had a roof on it. “Sounds reasonable.” He cocked his head at the sound of a heartbroken groan from the next room. “You hear that?” he said to Dani, and grinned at her, a peace offering of sorts. “That is the sound of ultimate suffering. Or as we mortals know it, Tabby discovering there’s no cable TV here.”

She smiled back, letting her own pack slide to the floor. “Life is pain, Meltdown,” she called into the next room. “Get used to it.”

That surprised James into a laugh. “ _The Princess Bride_. You a closet dork, Dani?”

“Takes one to know one.” Dani eased herself down onto one of the couches, making a face at the cloud of dust that rose up. “I spent time with Mike -- Forearm -- in the MLF. He was always watching some old movie, and anything was better than listening to Wildside flirt badly with Dragoness. What’s your excuse?”

He shrugged. “Shatterstar.” 

“Ah, Shatterstar.” Dani smiled up at him. “That always seems to say it all with you guys.” Her smile twisted, turned a little wistful. “I missed a lot, didn’t I?”

James chucked her gently on the shoulder. “Well, stick around,” he advised her. “When he and Ric come back, you too can be an expert in the ways of Shatty. He’s a good guy, actually. Kind of unusual, to put it mildly, but nice to have around.”

“Maybe I’ll do that.” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “So are he and Julio really--”

“Dani,” Terry sang out, and appeared in the doorway, swinging the car keys around her little finger. “Be a dear and drive me into town, won’t you? I’m thinking we don’t dare trust Tabby and Bobby with the grocery shopping.” She looked between the two of them, especially at James’ hand still resting on Dani’s shoulder. “Oh -- am I interrupting?”

“No,” they said in unison, and Dani jumped up from the couch to take the keys from her.

Terry lifted her eyebrows at James, who looked away. A moment later the girls were gone, but James’ fingers were still tingling with the warmth of her skin.

\---

That night they sat around the table after dinner, having a more serious discussion.

“Nebraska,” James said. “As soon as possible.”

Bobby was studying the map, frowning. “That’s a very long drive, my friend. Are you certain about this?”

“Yes.” He held Terry’s gaze across the table; she looked concerned. “Don’t ask me how I know, but Michael Whitecloud is there and I need to get to him before someone else does. And I think I should go alone. This is personal, and dangerous. The rest of you don’t need to be involved.”

“We’re a team, you great idiot,” Terry informed him sharply. “I’m going with you, at the least.”

“Who is this Michael Whitecloud?” Dani asked from her perch on the kitchen counter.

James folded his arms over his chest. “He’s a survivor of Camp Verde. The _only_ survivor, apart from me. I went through a lot to find him, and now I need to know what he knows.”

She met and held his gaze. “Then we’ll find him.”

“Yeah, and we’ll mess him up,” Tabby contributed without looking up from her gossip mag. “Don’t worry, Jimmy, we gotcha. Who are we talking about?”

\---

Something woke him in the night from unsettled dreams of dogs and desert, his brother’s face, the smoke-smeared sky above the ruins of his home. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, and then rolled quietly to his feet, doing his best not to disturb the snoring Bobby on the floor next to him.

The porch creaked as James stepped out on it, despite how carefully he was moving so as not to wake the others. The lightbulb on the porch was burnt out, but it didn’t matter. The moon was almost full and with his enhanced senses darkness was never an obstacle anyway.

He sat down on the step, wrapping his arms around his knees, and looked up at the sky.

Danielle’s steps were quiet, but his sharp ears caught them, so he wasn’t startled when she came up behind him and touched his shoulder. “You can’t sleep?”

“No.” He craned his neck to look up at her. “You?”

“No.” She paused for a moment, and then stepped down to sit next to him. “Not for a long time.”

James could feel the warmth of her arm almost touching his. It made his skin prickle. “Is that a goddess thing?”

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to smite you,” she said tartly.

He chuckled comfortably, and smiled out into the darkness. There was nothing but the wind out there, skidding over the empty fields and rustling leaves. Far away, a coyote yipped, joined by his pack after a moment. An owl hooted softly in the trees beyond the house, and took off in a rustle of leaves and a rush of great wings.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few moments of silence. “For saying what I did. If the team trusts you, I trust you.”

She shrugged, staring out across the rows of weeds. “You were right, though -- I _was_ a double agent. I don’t know if I would trust me in your place, to be honest.”

“But we do,” he said. “We know you, Moonstar. I don’t know you as well as some, maybe, but… I always liked you, you know that? Back when we were New Mutants and Hellions, always at each other’s throats. Your team drove me crazy -- hell, they still do now that they’re _my_ team, but I always thought you were a good person. A true warrior, honorable and brave.”

Dani turned to look at him. “Not so honorable anymore. I’ve changed since those days, James. I’m not that kid anymore.”

“Mm,” James answered, neutral. “That’s a matter of perspective. ...Can I tell you an old story at this point, or is that too cliche?”

“Well, that depends,” she answered. “Does it have a poignant moral that will make me realize I’ve known the right path to take all along?”

James laughed. “You’ll never know unless you listen.”

She stretched out her legs in front of her. Still long and coltish, like she’d never quite grown into them. “Ah well. Go ahead, I’ll try to stay awake.”

“That’s the spirit.” He closed his eyes. “My grandmother used to tell stories about the two sons of White Painted Woman, the first of the People. Killer of Enemies was the older son, and he was a great warrior. He roamed the earth with his spear and his arrows, destroying the monsters and making the world safe for the People. But there was one monster, Owl Man Giant, who even Killer of Enemies could not beat. He would swoop in and steal all the food, so that White Painted Woman and Killer of Enemies were hungry and starving.

“Then one day there was a great thunderstorm, and Lightning came down to the earth and struck White Painted Woman and got her pregnant.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand sheepishly. “Don’t look at me, I’m just repeating what I’ve heard. Anyway, in the spring she gave birth to her second son, who was called Child Born of Water, and he grew up as fast as prairie grass. Now, this kid was anxious to prove himself as great a warrior as his brother, and so when he was a young boy he managed to persuade Killer of Enemies to take him on the hunt.

“They had killed a deer and were settling down to eat when they heard the footsteps of Owl Man Giant coming closer, coming to take their food. Killer of Enemies was afraid of him and hid, but Child Born of Water jumped up and challenged the monster, even though he only had his little kid-sized bow and his arrows made of sharp grass. Owl Man Giant’s arrows were tall pine trees and his bow was as big as the sky, but Child Born of Water wasn’t afraid. He stood there as the giant shot the first arrow, and he turned to face the south and whistled. The arrow exploded as if it had been struck by lightning. The giant shot again, and once again Child Born of Water turned to the west and whistled, and the arrow exploded. The next two arrows were the same. He turned north, and boom, explosion. He turned east -- no more arrows.”

Dani was watching him when he turned to look at her, almost leaning into his side. “Go on,” she prompted when he paused.

“Right. So, then it was Child Born of Water’s turn to shoot, and Owl Man Giant was starting to be afraid. The kid shot his little grass arrow, and the monster tried to turn and whistle as he had done, but Owl Man Giant didn’t have the same powerful magic. The first grass arrow hit the monster’s left arm and made him bleed. The second struck him in the back, the third in his right arm, and the last one pierced Owl Man Giant right through the heart, and he fell down and died. And there was enough food for White Painted Woman and for all the People after that.”

Dani was quiet at his side for a long moment. “Good story. But what was the moral?”

James grinned down at her. “Did I say there was a moral?”

“You implied it.”

“Think you’ll find that was all you, Moonstar.”

She elbowed him gently in the side. “All right, fine. But I think I know what you mean by it.” He gestured for her to be his guest, and she propped her chin on one hand, looking out at the sky. “Child Born of Water was special enough to do something impossible. He knew what he was -- the child of Lightning -- and he wasn’t afraid to use that for a good cause, to keep the People safe from an enemy, when their greatest warrior was too afraid to try. You’re telling me that I already know who I am and what I can do, and that’s how I’ll do good, in the end. You were being _wise_ , Proudstar.”

James slung an arm around her companionably. “Who, me? I was just telling some old story. Passing the time.”

Dani was still for a moment, hesitating, and then she leaned into his side and turned her face up to the night sky. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything, but you’re welcome.” Her long hair was soft against his neck, and James lifted a hand to brush it away. “Dani?”

“Mm-hm.”

“I hope you stay with us. This time.”

She didn’t answer, but when he glanced down she was smiling, still looking up at the stars.

They stayed like that for a long time, until James had to stretch out his cramped legs, and then Dani sat up and turned to face him. “I’m going to bed. You?”

He shook his head. The absence of her warmth against his side felt cool, disappointing. “I’ll keep watch a while longer. But you go ahead, get some sleep.”

Dani stood, hesitated a minute, and then leaned down to press warm lips to his cheek. “Good night, James.”

She was gone a moment later, and James leaned his head on his arms and grinned out into the night. Somehow those unsettling dreams seemed much further away now.

\---

They were back on the road the next day, heading west. The country skeeved Tabby out, Bobby was offering to pay for real hotel rooms with sheets and running water at the next stop, and Nebraska was calling. And after that -- well, James didn’t know, but additions and subtractions aside, the team was still a team. That was a start. 

**Author's Note:**

> There are many different versions of the Apache legend retold here; I imagine James's grandmother may have taken some liberties in the telling, as I have.


End file.
